The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.
If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny’s Child, because you couldn’t afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you’re an evil pirate! You wouldn’t steal a car! Creators must be paid!
If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and featured a video or audio clip, then even if it’s fair use, and even if it’s used to make a legitimate point, you’re getting demonetised. That’s assuming your videos don’t disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn’t shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube’s convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!
And if you’re a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.5 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US$2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone’s intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don’t deserve to be paid a cent.
Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.
@music@fedibb.ml @technology #technology #tech #economics #copyright #ArtificialIntelligence #capitalism #IntellectualProperty @music@lemmy.ml #law #legal #economics
@chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon The other factor with software copyrights is the issue of legacy software.
There’s a lot of software out there in the world that’s still in use, still under copyright, but no longer sold or supported by a vendor. In some cases, it might not even be clear who actually owns the copyright.
Sometimes it’s for specialist equipment that’s built using obsolete software. (Hello, OS/2 ATM machines.)
Sometimes it’s for large enterprises that still use legacy VAX machines, token ring ethernet equipment, CP/M applications and Windows XP desktops.
Sometimes it’s run by retro computing hobbyists who really loved the Atari ST or Speccy.
There’s a good argument to be made that all abandonware should be released to the public domain. It would certainly make life a lot easier for many people.
@ajsadauskas @chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon The Software Preservation Network is working on this in the US, carving out exemptions for software preservation under the DMCA. https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/core-activities/law-policy/
@ajsadauskas @chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Share alike is better in many respects than PD. This is purely to make life easier, not for another round of making profits by adding some little modifications here and there.
@forthy @ajsadauskas @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon maybe, but like any license, share alike only works if you continue a work’s copyright in perpetuity
@chucker @ajsadauskas @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon This is work that still has copyright. When doing discussions with authors of abandoned work, they are much more willing to go for share alike than for PD.
Anyways, PD should have been share alike from start.